MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Tom Vandervelde has been awarded an early-career award from the National Science Foundation for promising research on the conversion of heat to electricity.
Vandervelde, the John A. and Dorothy Adams Faculty Development Professor, will use the $400,000, five year award to continue his studies in thermophotovoltaics (TPVs)cells that convert thermal energy, or heat, into electricity. His research has implications for a new class of green technologies.
"Right now, heat sources have to be in excess of 1500 degrees Celsius in order for TPVs to work efficiently," says Vandervelde. His goal is to make TPVs more efficient at lower temperatures, and ultimately, convert heat to electricity at a cool 37 degrees Celsiusor the temperature of the human body.
This could have potential use in medical devices, such as a pacemaker that keeps a charge from the electricity generated by one's own body heat.
In a TPV system, when a photonan energy packet of light or heatstrikes the TPV a charge carrier pair is created that generates an electron and subsequently electricity.
But if the charge carriers recombine, a photon is re-emitted and is lost as light or heat. "Every time that recombination happens, that's less energy you get out and in the end that lowers your overall efficiency," says Vandervelde.
By using recent advances in infrared photodetectors, Vandervelde will investigate the use of a novel photodiode structure that contains a barrier which prevents recombination of the charge carriers. This allows the particles to flow out of the cell as unimpeded electrical current.
"By putting the barriers in, we end up separating where those charge carriers are so they end up not spending a lot of time near each other," says Vandervelde. "It makes recombination far less likely to occur, which means that you end up getting out a lot m
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| Contact: Alex Reid alexander.reid@tufts.edu 617-627-4173 Tufts University Source:Eurekalert |
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